"Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy right-eousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (Psalm 88:12).

Psalm 88 could be considered as the mournful lamentation of its author, Heman the Ezrahite, who suddenly felt his whole life of service to God had been unrewarded and useless, and that his own death was imminent. He even thought death would be "the land of forgetfulness" where all his sorrows and failures could be forgotten.

There is no reason for a Christian ever to feel so despondent. The ungodly man may use the year's end as a time of revelry, hoping to drown the memory of all his failures and sins. Cartoonists often depict the old year as a tottering old man, good for nothing and ready to die, while the New Year is like an energetic child, full of hope.

But those who know the Lord must not give way to regretting and forgetting their failures. Inevitably their past blessings will be found to have been greater than their sorrows, when they remember David's testimony. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: . . . who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies" (Psalm 103:2,4). As the old hymn would remind us: "Count your many blessings; name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done."

Even in the midst of dreadful devastation and sorrow, if necessary, the believer can say with Jeremiah: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23).

We can make a wonderful Biblical resolution for the New Year: "I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth" (Psalm 34:1). We must not drift off into the land of forgetfulness, but rather learn daily to dwell in God's promised land. HMM